Transaction processing systems are known in the art. Such transaction processing systems receive transaction data from merchants and assemble the data for transmission to financial processing systems, such as banks or credit card issuing organizations. These transaction processing systems receive data from the merchant in the format dictated by the financial processing system, and forward the transaction data on for subsequent processing in large files known as “batch files.” These batch files are usually submitted once every day, or at other periodic times.
While such transaction processing systems perform certain useful functions, the merchant must ensure that the data that has been entered is in the proper format and falls within allowable boundaries for each financial processing system. Each financial processing system has specialized data formats and functions, which further complicates the processing of transaction data. When a merchant has failed to provide data in the proper format or within allowable boundaries, the financial processing system generates an error message that is then transmitted in a batch file to the merchant through the transaction processing system. Thus, the process of correcting the data can take several days, which can be further complicated if personnel are entering incorrect data fields and are unaware of that condition until the error messages are received and processed.